


it's just the sun (rising again)

by BerryliciousCheerio



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/F, Gen, Roadtrip, also angst, and some minor bank robbing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-28
Updated: 2015-02-28
Packaged: 2018-03-15 17:05:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3455054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BerryliciousCheerio/pseuds/BerryliciousCheerio
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The world shakes down around you.  Become.  </p><p>(or: skye comes to terms)</p>
            </blockquote>





	it's just the sun (rising again)

**Author's Note:**

> say it with me y'all  
> ROADTRIP ROADTRIP ROADTRIP
> 
> kind of auish?? in the sense that nothing like this will ever happen in canon but we can dream y'all
> 
> also yay! morally ambiguous!skye  
> also this kind of went from angsty to fluffy to angsty and back??? help me?????  
> also i may have appendicitis so this is how im distracting myself until the pain maybe becomes unbearable  
> (so, like, if u hate this, pls keep that in mind)
> 
> trigger warnings as follows: suicidal thoughts, alcohol, grief

 

 

**...**

 

 

The world shakes down around you.

 _Become_.

 

**...**

 

They find you in the rubble, still in their hazmat suits, guns drawn, expecting an enemy much larger, much more dangerous than yourself. You feel alive. You feel terrible.

They look for Trip, for Raina—

"They're  _gone_ ," you manage to spit out after too many silent minutes, dust in your mouth, your nose, your veins. Raina left as soon as the dust had settled—ran without a second look back. Trip—

you saw him crumble. Disintegrate.  _Die_.

But your team—what's left of your team, Ward  _gone_ , Trip  _gone_ —they stumble to a halt around you, too worried about someone—

a  _monster_.

The building shudders anew.

 

**...**

 

Jemma sits at your bedside even when you refuse to look at her; the tentative, stumbling thing you'd nearly built together lays shattered at your feet because you are an earthquake, a disaster.

"Skye," she begins, gentle as always. Her hand hovers by your elbow, hesitant, and it would be so easy to turn into her touch, let her piece you back together. Her hands are meant to heal. But yours are meant to destroy. And Jemma is good—

you can't seem to keep good alive.

"Simmons," you hiss. " _Get out_." You think that she wants to argue, wants to stay beside you—

but Jemma Simmons is nothing if not selfless.

 

 

**...**

 

 

(you try to ignore the way that the empty room feels)

 

 

**...**

 

 

You don't sleep, but that's—you were expecting that. You ask May to leave you in containment after you leave cracks in the walls of your room. The softness in her eyes makes you want to cry, but she's the only one you trusted to lock you up.

"Don't—," you call out to her, half choking on your own words, on the remnants of dust from that cavern. She turns; looks at you with something achingly close to maternal concern, impossibly soft. "Don't tell anyone I'm here," you plead, hating how close to tears you are, how thick your voice is.

Anyone else would argue, would reason. But May is steady—is true and heavy and angrier than you think you can ever know, and you think that she understands. She nods once. Turns and leaves, and you have to face the wall, have to count from one hundred to just keep from shaking the compound around you.

Your hands ache with power.

 

 

**...**

 

 

(empty room. empty room, empty head, empty heart. keep your ground still, even when your hands  _quake_ )

 

 

**...**

 

 

Loneliness sits like a rock in your stomach—ever present, never ending.

This is a self-inflicted solitude, a prison of your own making, but your team—your  _family_  deserves better than this, than shaking so hard to try and keep the building from coming down on top of their heads.

You grow in, a chasm opening in your lungs that you dive into willingly.

This is better. This is the best you can do.

 

**...**

 

Sometimes you miss your van—miss not worrying about anyone but yourself.

You sometimes wonder if it would have been better to have never been found; to remain that cloud headed girl, whose hands only shook after a bad night.

 

 

**...**

 

 

(it seems as if all your nights, now, are bad nights)

 

 

**...**

 

 

(accept the emptiness with open palms. let it become a part of you.

keep the floor beneath them steady and your feet tethered to the ground)

 

 

**...**

 

 

You feel a thousand years old sometimes, but your true age comes back to you with a vengeance in the night, when it's dark and your bed is empty and cold, the walls of the containment chamber metallic and clinical and useless against the unnamed monsters that pursue you.

You're still so young—younger than the rest of the team, and you think that any one of them would have been better suited for these—

_abilities._

More responsible, better prepared to accept the consequences, but you're you, and you're twenty five and scared and still very much a child, and you don't think you would ever wish this on anyone.

 

**...**

 

Fitz finds you accidentally, trying to find the quiet that he needs to talk his way through his own mind.

He stumbles to a halt in front of you, and you wish that the walls of containment were solid, opaque, but there's nothing to be done now. He's careful with his words, taking his time, and you ache to think that he's gotten better, that the team has gone on in your absence—this is what you wanted and yet nothing at all what you expected.

"May told us that you—uh," he says clearly, stumbling just the once. "She told us you left. To have some time to yourself."

Your hands begin to shake. "Fitz," you murmur, balling your hands into fists, digging them into your thighs and praying to a god you don't think you've ever believed in. "You need to go upstairs."

He tugs on his hair with one hand, rests the other on his hip, and he looks hurt and a little confused. "Why would you lie to us? Or—," he amends, "why would you make May lie to us?"

You feel it build inside you, feel it shake your core, the rumbling in some deep, ancient part of you.

The lights above you shudder.

 

 

**...**

 

 

(when the walls crumble and sparks rain down, you think that you manage to tell him to get down.

you can't even destroy properly)

 

 

**...**

 

 

When the dust clears  _again_ , Fitz is standing, safe, among the rubble. Covered in dust, he looks no worse for wear, and for that you're grateful, but you don't think the next attack will be quite so forgiving. It's easy to keep your world steady when you're empty—it's when you're filled up that becomes the problem.

You try and talk, tell him to leave, but all you can do is scream.

 

 

**...**

 

 

(jemma storms the basement.

you expected nothing less)

 

 

**...**

 

 

"I had to leave Fitz—my  _best friend_. You can't—how  _dare_  you ask me to leave you too." And she's crying, yelling unabashedly, hands in fists at her side; she sounds angry and hurt and you deserve nothing less from her.

"I'm trying to keep you safe," you hiss, knees up to your chest, on the edge of your bed. It's too close to the truth. You backtrack. "I'm trying to keep you all safe."

"Bullshit." Her voice is harsh, accusing, but it's really the curse that makes you start. "You're scared, Skye," she begins, softening and taking a step towards you, the glass still separating you. It would be so easy to let her in. "You're scared and you don't want to hurt us and I  _understand_ ," and you know that she does, and you remember the panic that shot through you when you heard the ramp coming down, when she fell. Remember the relief when you could hug her, after.

"But Skye—," she says your name so gently that you finally meet her eyes. "Skye, we trust you.  _I_ trust you."

She infiltrated Hydra, you remember then. Survived there for months and came back with calloused hands and an easy way of handling guns. She's seen terrible, seen horror—

stared evil in the eyes and came back in one piece, and she's still looking at you like you're something precious, something important. Something worth believing in.

 

**...**

 

It's not easy, but May sits with you and counts out beats of four for you to breathe to—four by four, time and time again.

She doesn't tell that it'll get better, doesn't say that it'll ever get easier, but she doesn't leave either.

 

 

**...**

 

 

(in fact—none of them leave)

 

 

**...**

 

 

(you cry a lot, when you realize that)

 

 

**...**

 

 

Two weeks before the world shakes again.

Not enough time, you think.

 

**...**

 

There are sparks raining down and all you can think is that they're  _not safe_ , they'll never be safe while you stay, so when the rumbling stops and the ground beneath you steadies, you leave.

With nothing in your hands but your heart, you leave.

 

**...**

 

Your van is gone, but you find a pretty good replacement about five miles away from the compound, outside a gas station. You scope out the cameras and cover your face, but the van is kind of garbage so you doubt anyone will really care that much to find it.

And you feel very young again, feel twenty again and free, with the road stretching out in front of you. And it's terrible and good and you don't want to be alone, but you can't be around people, can't be around your people, at least right now.

It's not forever, you have to remind yourself, have to chant over the radio so you don't get any crazy ideas and drive the van off the winding mountain roads you have to travel just to find the sun again.

 

 

**...**

 

 

(and  _god_ —

it feels like years since you've seen the sun)

 

 

**...**

 

 

You don't have a laptop, which kind of makes surviving a little hard, so you cause a  _minor_  earthquake in the first town you find that has a Best Buy and—

okay, it wasn't that minor, because the store employees go into a little bit of a panic and the monitoring systems are damaged like a  _lot_ , so once the overtired workers scramble out, you waltz in.

The manager of the store, a douchey looking guy with a name tag that reads Byron, stayed behind, you find out, but you aim one kick to the back of his knees and pinch at the nerve in his neck that Jemma showed you on one of your movie nights, back before everything went to pieces—

Byron falls to the ground quickly and quietly, and you finally pull your balaclava down. Byron will be out for a while, you decide, eyeing his drooling form before you step over him, walking purposefully towards the laptops.

They're not the best—the one you had at SHIELD was incomparable, and even the one you had before, the one that now has about four bullets lodged in it, a la Hydra, was better than the run of the mill ones that are lined up in front of you.

But you figure you can upgrade later, now that you've got just about all of time lying in front of you. You grab the best of the group, and then, just for fun, you grab the one best suited for gaming, because you haven't played with your Sims in months and you kind of want to feel like a god.

You leave the store in chaos, mainly because you literally have no idea how to clean up any of it and also because Byron starts mumbling something about a great rack as you pass him, arms laden with stolen goods. You nudge him with the tip of your boot, rolling him onto his back and giggling at the double chin he gets.

"Well Byron," you grin. "Sadly this rack is out of your league."

 

**...**

 

You'd forgotten how uncomfortable it was in those early weeks in your van, before you retrofitted it with couch cushions and a fitted sheet—groundbreaking, you know. Point is—your back aches when you wake in the mornings, and you suffer through it for nearly a week before you figure out what needs to be done.

So.

Well.

You sort of rob a bank.

 

**...**

 

You definitely rob a bank, but only just a little and from this really terrible company that tore down rows of affordable housing to build a superstore, so you don't feel terrible.

Theft is okay when you have superpowers, right?

 

**...**

 

There's about a hundred thousand in smaller accounts under about three hundred fake names that you picked from a generator. You use the money to ditch the van and pick a sedan from rows of shiny new cars—

you feel mature and grown up and like you're leaving yourself behind, picking a new identity to get used to. You were once Daisy, then Mary. For a brief stint, you went by Morgana, but that ended quickly. You've been Skye for nearly a decade. And how easy is it for you to leave Skye behind?

You push whatever emotion you might be feeling down and away, out of sight—pick a new name and pay for a motel room with cash because you think you should frame this as a burned spy kind of movie.

Try not to think about your friends, your family.

Try really, really hard.

The motel only rattles a little around you.

 

**...**

 

You keep it together for a good two days, keep the walls solid and the ground steady, but then you wake up scared and sad and breathing hard and alarms are blaring and there are cracks in the ceiling above you. You sit up with a jolt, heart beat wavering and hammering and you can feel it in your throat.

"Shit," you hiss, rolling out of the bed, your spine popping and hips creaking. You feel so old right now—feel centuries sitting on your shoulders, so you grab your stuff and leave while everyone is panicking around you.

Leave the mess behind you—

all you seem to be good at is running.

 

**...**

 

The road is welcoming, and you find it easy to fall into old habits again, like balancing a Big Mac between your lap and the wheel, using your knees to keep your course while you stuff fries into your mouth. Like drinking too much at a dive bar and sleeping it off in the backseat.

You kiss a cowboy with ash in his mouth and let him get you off in the bathroom, refusing to look back when you walk away. It's easy and it's safe—safer now than it ever was when you were younger, when all you could do to defend yourself was scratch and kick and pray. Now you have a gun strapped to the small of your back, a knife in your boot—May's lessons are always near, ready to be referenced and remembered.

You're better than you used to be; can draw the line and enforce your boundaries, know what your limits are and have the clarity of mind to stop drinking after your third scotch.

The stars are beautiful above you at night and you are so empty.

 

 

**...**

 

 

(you dream about her once—gentle and good and strong. you like to think that if you met in a different life, things would have been easier; the timing right and the circumstances conducive to building the kind of life that only exists in daydreams now.

the dream is simple. watching fitz and mack yell at their game, jemma's hand warm in your own; your team, your people near and safe.

the dashboard rattles ominously)

 

 

**..** **.**

 

 

You run to California, back to your roots—what few roots you have. There's a motel two streets over from the orphanage, close enough that you can see the church's spire over the skyline, and you get a room that faces in the opposite direction, towards the city.

Los Angeles gets shaken down to their knees regularly, and the few tremors you cause when you're tired and sad go unnoticed.

You think about jumping. Think about the poetry and in coming home just to die, but the words taste like lead in your mouth because this was never your home. You're not quite sure where home is, anymore, but it's not a smoggy city, not the place where you spent more time locked up in a closet, being told to ask god for forgiveness, than you did growing up.

It's late, on what's probably a Thursday, and jumping seems like betrayal.

 

 

**...**

 

 

(leaving tastes like betrayal. giving up tastes like betrayal. betrayal tastes like tears and dust and the burn of tequila.

home, though—

home, you think, tastes sweet)

 

 

**...**

 

 

It's been ten weeks and your money is running low, but, like, your conscience can only take so much major crime before it falters, so you think that maybe you could go back now.

You've not shaken the ground in days, kept your hands and feet steady, but you still think about the unfettered fear that was in their eyes when you brought sparks raining down on their heads.

So instead you think about getting a job, putting down roots and picking a new name. It would be so easy to slip into routine. But routine is abandoning everything, and you don't think that you're quite there yet, and maybe that's okay.

 

**...**

 

Your control begins to slip.

On Tuesday, you shake your water bottle off of the nightstand. Wednesday, you wake up to dust coating you, filling your airways and settling into your lungs like it's come home. Thursday, you have to grab the desk as you pass it, the windows rattling.

On the news you see reports of minor damage—some scrapes and bruises, a few car alarms going off as far as a hundred miles up the coast.

There's no place safe from you, you think.

 

**...**

 

You come back from the convenience store down the street and Jemma is sitting on your bed, hands held primly in her lap. You drop the bags to the ground, kick off your boots. "Where's the rest?"

"I'm here alone." That's enough to get you to meet her eyes. Heavily shadowed, she looks like she hasn't slept in days. "I've been tracking seismic activity since you left. Wisconsin doesn't see many earthquakes, you know."

Keep your breath even, steady. "Did you walk here?" you try to joke, but your voice is wavering, tears choking you, and you sound weak, sad and scared.

"Drove, actually," she points out the open window, to a dark SUV parked beside your car. "I wanted something smaller, but Coulson wasn't willing to part with Lola."

She offers you a smile, tentative and hopeful, and you sort of rush her, so grateful for her and for familiarity and for  _home_ , and Jemma stands to meet you, her arms soft and careful around you, holding you close but not too tight, giving you the space to breathe.

It's good and it's real; your heart is pounding and you're definitely crying, but the ground below you stays still.

 

**...**

 

Here's something you never knew—

Jemma Simmons is a pool shark.

She'd been scandalized when you told her about the whole bank robbery thing, only slightly placated when you promised that you didn't actually  _rob_  a bank, just hacked and siphoned from a remote location, but she'd completely shut down any talk of doing the same thing, with an equally corrupt company.

"Skye, we're government agents—," she'd started, hands on hips in disapproval.

"Not anymore," you'd reminded her, but the point was moot, and now you're here, in the back corner of a dimly lit bar, watching as Jemma charms the frat boys and then pulverizes them. It's kind of hot.

At the end of the night, you have nearly a thousand in cash, and you slip your hand into hers carefully. "And that's morally better than robbing a bank?"

She throws a wad of bills at you, wrinkling her nose. "Oh, shut it."

 

 

**...**

 

 

(so, like, you haven't really thought out this roadtrip thing, really.

but jemma is laughing in the passenger seat, turning the radio's volume up and singing along to marina kind of terribly.

the sun hits her at just the right angle, picking up gold in her hair, and everything else sort of falls away)

 

 

**...**

 

 

It can only stay good for so long, and you're still so scared sometimes.

You've tried not to think about Trip, tried to swallow the guilt and hide away from the memories, but the terrible thing about monsters in your head is that they always find you.

 

**...**

 

You're somewhere in Ohio, lying on the hood of the car, fingers intertwined gently, and something about the way that Jemma says you name just  _breaks_ you, shatters you so completely—

your hands shake first, so you pull away, let her go and slide off the car, wrapping your arms around yourself, like that might make you still. Jemma scrambles after you, her voice concerned and insistent, but you manage to not hear a thing she calls after you, too focused on getting away, getting far from her.

"Skye—!" she finally catches up to you, catching hold of your elbow and spinning you to face her. You feel it building, the shudder, the shake, leaving you helpless in the face of it. The trees rustle, the car rattles, yards and yards away. Jemma looks around—

"I've done some research, yeah? It's better if you give in," she tells you, holding your arms and tapping her fingers along your skin. "Trying to ignore it makes it worse, I think."

There's as equal of a chance that she's talking about your ability as she is talking about Trip, about the grief you refuse to experience, but her words settle against your bones, her concern sinking into your pores, becoming a part of you.

The ground beneath you is soft from rain, welcoming you when you fall—

_it's time to come home._

 

 

**_..._ **

 

 

(jemma holds you through it all, until the sun begins to rise. your sobs subside, you grief pulsing and unrelenting, but bearable all the same.

you didn't drown—

didn't bring civilization to its knees, and there's only one tree that shows any sign of damage, a few branches hanging low enough to brush against your hair as you walk back to the car, your hands steady for the first time in weeks.

you don't talk—don't discuss anything, but when jemma reaches across the center console, her eyes carefully trained on the road, you feel settled)

 

 

**...**

 

 

The world shakes down around you.

 _Rebuild_.

 

 

**...**

 

 

_**fin** _


End file.
